Thursday, January 5, 2012

NPR Puzzle 1/1/12 -- Anagrams to "Gentlewomen Golf"

Name certain scores in a certain sport. This is a two-word phrase with a total of 10 letters (5 letters in each word). If you have the right phrase, you can rearrange all the letters to name a different sport, also in two words (6 letters in the first word, 4 in the second). What are the scores, and what is the sport?

I really can't say why it took us so long to get FIELD GOALS, but it did. Like, forever. And, as many people noted in the comments, you can get GOLF out of that pretty quickly, but LADIES GOLF is harder to see. Maybe because it's a bit patronizing.

Yes, Will, it's the Ladies' Professional Golf Association, but that's a bit like referring to the women's athletic team as the "Lady Vols," etc. The team may be known as the "Lady Vols," but the players are women. Similarly, the LPGA may keep the L but I suspect the women who play golf professionally don't think of themselves as "ladies."

And it's arguably not a sport. They play golf. Unless you want to make a big deal out of the fact women play a shorter course, there's no difference between "mens golf" and "ladies golf" such that "ladies golf" is a specific sport.

I'd take a mulligan if I were you, Will.

But I love the opportunity this gave me with the photos. I have my personal favorite LPGA stars, and I went looking at Wiki's list of LPGA Hall of Famers. Click on each name and you get the birthplaces. Any luck even figuring out which continent these places were on?

Our tie-break rule: In the event that a single round number is announced, AND two separate people picked the ranges leading up to and leading up from that round number, the prize will be awarded to whichever entrant had not already won a prize, or in the event that both entrants had won a prize already or neither had, then to the earlier of the two entries on the famous judicial principle of "First Come First Serve," (or in technical legal jargon, "You Snooze, You Lose").

I wonder what "certain" sport Will meant, as field goals are scored in football, basketball and rugby.I played in several games of rugby when I was in college fifty-some years ago. I may not have totally recovered yet.

I know I'm a gloomy gus, but I think the new Wesun moderator, Rachel Martin, may just hold the future of the Puzzle in her hands.